MICHAEL HAFFTKA

Hafftka is a figurative expressionist painter residing in Brooklyn, NY. His work is in several

museums around the world, including the Met, the MOMA, SFMOMA, the British Museum,

Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston and The National Gallery. His many shows include an exhibition at MOMA, NY, and a retrospective of large paintings at the Housatonic Museum of Art.

Hafftka’s work has been written about extensively by art historian and curator Professor Sam Hunter and by John Caldwell, NYT critic and SFMOMA curator.

Hafftka has collaborated with poets and writers, most notably William Gass and Tom Sleigh, whose collaborations were published in The Yale Review and Blackbird respectively. A portrait of Philip Levine, 2011-2012 Poet Laureate of the U.S., by Hafftka is in the Fresno Art Museum.

Hafftka started painting in 1973. In his own words:

“I paint the reality under the surface from an emotional point of view. I feel and render. I let go

of the certainty that is in visual perceptions and create from a visceral experience. Painting

requires of me a state of intentional open-mindedness that often brings with it doubts and

insecurities (similar to what John Keats called "negative capability"), which I relish, despite the

discomfort”.